American Eagle jet from DFW makes emergency landing

An American Eagle jet flying from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport to Illinois made a safe emergency landing Wednesday night at an east Texas airport after smoke was reported in the aircraft.

Laura Masvidal, a spokeswoman for Fort Worth-based American Airlines, says nobody was hurt on Flight 3400, which was bound for Moline, Ill., but was diverted to Greenville Municipal Airport-Majors Field.

Masvidal had no information Thursday on the source of the smoke aboard the Embraer 145, which carried 45 passengers and three crew members. Passengers were bused to DFW Airport and given overnight hotel accommodations and placed on flights on Thursday.

The plane landed in Greenville, 60 miles northeast of DFW, about eight minutes after takeoff, according to FlightAware.com, a flight tracking website. The Greenville airport is a municipal airport that serves general aviation aircraft and does not have any commercial service.

“Our maintenance team drove to the Greenville airport to evaluate the aircraft. The aircraft will eventually be flown back to DFW and return to service,” the airline said in a statement.

One of the passengers on board was Tiffany Liou, who told NBC News that passengers were alerted to the emergency when a flight attendant made an announcement to brace for an emergency landing.

“ ‘I need everybody to listen up’ and he was really serious and that’s when I just noticed people around me started panicking. I started crying. I was so scared,” Liou said. Liou was on the flight heading to Moline to start her new job as a reporter for the NBC affiliate in Davenport, Iowa. The report aired on NBC’s Today show.

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